Arturo Toscanini came from a modest family of Jewish descent.
He studied at the conservatory in Parma under Leandro Caranini
and he studied composition with Giusto Dacco. When several conductors
were unable to perform he conducted Verdi´s "Aida" without music
or notes on 30 Jun 1886.

He was an early admirer of
Richard Wagner and under his direction the first performance
of "Götterdämmerung" by an Italian company took place. On 21
Jun 1897 he married Carla DeMartino. The marriage lasted until
her death in 1951, but it was unhappy and Toscanini had numerous
affairs.

From 1898 to 1893 he was manager of the Scala
in Milan, where he brought many opera's to Italy for the first
time, among them Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" (1898)
and "Siegfried" (1899). He supported Enrico Caruso and Fyodor
I. Shalyapin early in their careers. From 1906 to 1908 he worked
again for the Scala, but his enemies there forced him to resign.

He
was the leader of the Metropolitan Opera in New York from 1908
to 1915. There he had a passionate affair with star singer Geraldine
Farrar. During the First World War he conducted at the front
and included German works, to the horror of the public.

In
1927 he gave his first radio concert and from 1928 to 1936 he
was the musical director of the New York Philharmonic. In 1929
he conducted at the festspiele in Bayreuth for the first time.
During the next years he became like an uncle to the Wagner
children, but after the nazi's became involved in the organisation
of the festival he refused to return. Until 1937 he performed
at the festival in Salzburg. In 1937 he broke off all relations
with Furtwängler because he suspected him of sympathizing with
the nazi's.

NBC had created an orchestra especially
for the maestro that he worked with for seventeen years. After
the Second World War he returned to Italy. He gave his last
performance on 4 Apr 1954.

Toscanini had a son by Rosina
Storchio, the first Madam Butterfly. He had also affairs with
Lotte Lehmann, Herva Nelli, Alma Gluck, Lucrezia Bori and Cesina
Ferrani. His affair with Ada Mainardi, whom he had met in 1920,
started in 1933 but only came to light when a large number of
his letters to her was auctioned in 1995.